Ukraine: 6 soldiers ambushed, killed in the east

Tuesday

May 13, 2014 at 12:11 PMMay 13, 2014 at 12:11 PM

Germany's foreign minister on Tuesday tried to broker a quick launch of talks between Ukraine's central government and pro-Russia separatists, yet fighting still claimed six lives in restive eastern Ukraine.

The Associated Press

KIEV, Ukraine — Germany's foreign minister on Tuesday tried to broker a quick launch of talks between Ukraine's central government and pro-Russia separatists, yet fighting still claimed six lives in restive eastern Ukraine.

Six servicemen were ambushed and killed and eight others wounded Tuesday afternoon outside the town of Kramatorsk, the defense ministry said. The attackers included at least 30 insurgents and were using grenade launchers and automatic weapons, it said in a statement.

Kramatorsk is in the Donetsk region, one of two in eastern Ukraine that declared independence on Monday.

Earlier, speaking at Kiev's main airport, envoy Frank-Walter Steinmeier said Germany supports Ukraine's efforts to arrange for a dialogue between the central government and its opponents in the eastern Donetsk and Luhansk regions that form the nation's industrial heartland.

Pro-Russia insurgents have seized government buildings and clashed with government forces in eastern Ukraine in the past month and are holding some journalists and others hostage. Steinmeier voiced hope for a quick release of the hostages, the handover of occupied buildings and stressed the importance of holding Ukraine's presidential vote as planned on May 25.

The Ukrainian government and the West have accused Russia of fomenting the mutiny in the east to derail Ukraine's presidential vote and possibly grab more land.

Steinmeier's trip is part of the road map for settling Ukraine's crisis laid out by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, a trans-Atlantic security group.

Russia called Tuesday for a swift implementation of the OSCE plan, saying its demand to end violence means that the central government in Kiev should stop its military operation to recapture buildings in the east, lift its blockade of cities and towns, pull its forces from eastern regions and release all political prisoners.

"We are demanding (they) stop intimidating civilians by using force or threatening to use it," Russia's Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

It added that it expects separatists in Ukraine's Donetsk and Luhansk regions to respond in kind if Kiev does all that.

"(The road map) creates conditions for launching a broad national dialogue involving all political forces and regions of Ukraine, aimed at reconciliation and a comprehensive constitutional reform intended to stop the nation from sliding further to catastrophe," the ministry said.

Russia also urged the United States and the European Union to persuade authorities in Kiev to prioritize discussions of giving more powers to Ukraine's regions ahead of the country's May 25 presidential vote.

The separatists held a referendum Sunday and claimed that about 90 percent of those who voted in Donetsk and Luhansk backed sovereignty. The two regions declared independence on Monday and those in Donetsk even asked to join Russia.

Ukraine's acting president called the vote a sham and Western governments said it violated international law.

The Kremlin has shown no immediate intention of annexing eastern Ukraine like it did the strategic Crimean Peninsula in March. Instead, Moscow has pushed for talks between Ukraine's central government and eastern regions on Ukraine's future — a cautious stance suggesting that Russia prefers a political rather than a military solution to its worst standoff with the West since the Cold War.